


we make quite a pear

by lazyfish



Series: SIiL-verse [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, background Pipsy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-12-01 19:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20880845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Bobbi and Hunter have a decision to make, and are helped by... pears?





	we make quite a pear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gort](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gort/gifts).

> Spoilers for the end of Secret Ingredient is Love ahead! Don't read this until you've finished that... or don't, if you don't care. :)

Their baby was never going to have a name. She was coming in less than a month, and she wasn’t going to have a name. All their family names were something they’d never want to wish on a child, and it wasn’t like either of them liked their families, anyways. Every name in their baby name book was either someone they hated or sounded weird with their last name or was just a name Bobbi could never imagine calling her daughter. 

She had been flipping through the book one last time, just in case there was something she missed, but it was absolutely useless. Bobbi snapped the book shut and resisted the urge to throw it onto the floor, frustrated tears stinging at her eyes. All she wanted was for her daughter’s name to feel right, and be at least half as beautiful as the baby herself was sure to be.

“Hey.” Lance scooted over from the other side of the couch, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “It’s going to be alright, Bob.” Bobbi leaned into his touch, nuzzling into her favorite spot in his neck. He still smelled like fresh-baked bread from his time in the bakery, and she inhaled deeply. The yeasty smell of the bread mingled with his cologne, and the overall effect was just as soothing as the weight of his arm. Every time she thought she was crazy for starting a business and a family at the same time, she did what she was doing now - snuggled up with her husband and breathed him in until her worries seemed a little smaller.

“I just want it to be perfect,” Bobbi sniffled. “She’s our baby.” Even if being a mother was still terrifying, Bobbi wanted it so badly it felt like she might burst sometimes. She didn’t want to make any mistakes, and mucking up the baby’s name felt like a pretty major mistake to make early on.

“We’ll find a name we like.” Hunter ran his hands through her hair gently. “Or we’ll see her, and we’ll just know.”

“I don’t want to wait until we see her!” Panic burbled in Bobbi’s chest, hot and sticky. “I want to know now!”

“Deep breaths, love,” her husband reminded her, continuing to comb through her hair. “I understand this is stressful for you, but getting frustrated isn’t going to change it.”

She hated when he was right. Bobbi took an obedient breath, following the breathing pattern that was second nature for both of them when they were overwhelmed. Hunter did it along with her, which made her feel marginally less crazy for freaking out over a baby name. It wasn’t the least rational thing she had had a meltdown over (thanks, hormones) but she knew tomorrow she was going to look back and judge herself for making such a fuss over it. Right now, though, she just had to calm her beating heart and ride the waves of emotions rolling through her.

“Do you want to sleep on it?” Hunter suggested. Bobbi sighed but nodded. She wasn’t going to get anywhere else tonight, and she was tired - as she always seemed to be lately. Hunter helped her up from the couch and waited patiently outside the bathroom door for her to be ready. It was still early in the night for him to be sleeping since he wasn’t expending vast amounts of energy creating another human, but Bobbi had developed an inability to sleep without her husband in bed with her. She was going to blame that on the tumult in her earlier relationship with Hunter and her fear of having to raise their child alone. She had hashed some of that over in therapy, but naming her fears didn’t change them, and Hunter didn’t seem to mind anyway.

Bobbi squeezed his hand to reassure herself he was still there (he was) before they made their way into the bedroom. Another baby name book was on the bedside table, and Bobbi handed it to her husband silently before climbing into bed. He slid it into a drawer, and putting it out of sight was more than enough to put it out of mind. Bobbi snuggled into Hunter’s side, and even her worries about her daughter’s name weren’t enough to keep her from sleep.

\---

“I know her name,” Hunter announced when Bobbi shuffled into the bakery’s back room the next morning. Piper was out front organizing the display cases, which was good - she had started a baby name betting pool, and if she heard any insider information, it was going to be unfair to everyone else.

“I’m listening,” Bobbi said as she grabbed eggs and milk out of the fridge. She was starting to work two hours later than usual, which Hunter had insisted on after the first time she’d fallen asleep while whisking eggs, but there was always more to be done. They were going to sell out of their Craving Crusher Cupcakes within the first hour, Bobbi was sure. Every day for the last three weeks, people had been ordering the chocolate-chocolate-chocolate-chocolate cupcakes by the dozen… and if a few of them ended up in Bobbi’s stomach, too, they  _ had _ been invented specifically for her consumption.

“Perry.”

“...You want to name our daughter Perry. Pear-y. As in, like the fruit pears.”

“That’s kind of why she exists, right?” Hunter gave her a smile that should not have made her face feel as warm as it did. Bobbi shook her head, exasperated.

“We are not naming our daughter after pears, whether or not they’re the reason she exists.”

“What do you mean, whether or not?!” Hunter asked, indignant. He passed her the box of cocoa powder then leaned against her station, obviously intent on getting the answer to his question.

“It was all a matter of time. I would have jumped you eventually.” Bobbi smirked as her husband’s face turned a fetching shade of pink. He couldn’t even be mad at her, because he had been the one to mention sex in the first place.

“So if I had made pears the first week, we could’ve spared ourselves a month of heartache?”

“I didn’t say that.” Bobbi paused in assembling the ingredients to look her husband in the eye. “Just that once I want something, I always get it.”

Hunter purred low and deep in his chest. “Don’t I know it.” He leaned across the station to fit their mouths together, and Bobbi whimpered. She had thought having a watermelon permanently fused to her midsection would decrease her libido, but nothing of the sort had happened and now she really just wanted to drag Hunter back upstairs for some private time.

“What have I said about PDA at work?” Piper sighed. Bobbi relinquished her grip on Hunter’s apron so he could step back from the workstation, but neither of them was particularly repentant as they looked at their long-suffering employee.

“If your girlfriend would accept our job offer, you’d have someone to PDA with, too,” Bobbi said. Mockingbird’s had grown quickly enough that it would be no burden financially to take on another full-time baker. Bobbi and Hunter had hinted to those applying to fill Bobbi’s spot when she went on maternity leave that their position could be permanent, but the person they really wanted was Daisy. They knew they worked well with her, and moreover, they enjoyed working with her. And, as Bobbi had said, it would give Piper a break from constantly third-wheeling.

“My girlfriend is just being stubborn,” Piper said, rolling her eyes. “You know how Dais gets.”

Bobbi and her husband both nodded. It wasn’t like they didn’t understand why Daisy was hesitant to take the job - they just wanted her to be able to get past those hesitations.

“She’ll come round,” Hunter said after a beat. “She can’t say no to me.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, boss.” Piper rolled her eyes. “Someone just phoned in an order for a hundred apple tartlets,” she said, getting back to business. “I told them there’s a fee for late orders, but they wanted them anyways.”

Bobbi sighed. “I’ll work the register.” Piper was faster at baking than her these days, and if they were working on a deadline, they needed all the speed they could spare. “We’ll talk later,” she said, fixing her husband with a look before she walked out to the front. 

Perry. Honestly, what was he thinking?

\---

“What’s it short for?”

“Huh?”

Bobbi lifted her head off her husband’s chest, turning her chin up so she could look at him. “Perry. It has to be short for something.”

“There’s a lot of options,” Hunter said, shifting slightly. Bobbi made a disgruntled noise, settling herself back against him. He was the most comfortable place to rest these days, and she didn’t like it when he fidgeted.

“Start talking, then.” Bobbi huffed. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this.” If Hunter didn’t start talking soon, she was going to come to her senses, and they’d be right back where they started - with no baby name and no prospects for one, either.

“Peregrine. Parker. Pearl.” 

“We’re not naming our child after a bird. It’s bad enough we might be naming her after a fruit.” Bobbi pressed her face into Hunter’s shirt, sighing. She hadn’t felt this crazy since the day she had asked him to start a bakery with her. That had turned out alright, though, so maybe this would too.

“Pearl is nice,” Hunter offered tentatively. “Classic.”

“Pearl Morse-Hunter.” Bobbi furrowed her brow. She didn’t hate it. “What’s her middle name?”

“Do I have to do all the work around here?”

Bobbi’s lower lip began to tremble before she could help it. Hunter’s arm around her shoulders tightened slightly, and he brushed a kiss across her temple. “Kidding, love. You’re doing all the hard bits.” He kissed her temple again, and Bobbi managed to steady herself before she started crying. “I just provide moral support.”

“And snacks.”

“And snacks,” Hunter agreed. “Not much good with middle names, though. My only idea is Pearl Jam, and -”

“We are  _ not _ naming her that.”

“You see, I knew you’d say that so I didn’t even try to suggest it.” Bobbi could feel Hunter’s smile when he once again kissed her head. “...But what about Pearl Jamie?”

“ _ No _ , Hunter.” Bobbi kind of hated that she liked the suggestion just a little bit. “She needs a longer middle name. Otherwise Morse-Hunter is going to sound out of place.”

“You know, she could just be Morse. I wouldn’t mind.”

“I would mind!” Bobbi shoved herself off of Hunter so she could meet his eyes. “She’s yours, and the whole world is going to damn well know she’s yours. Morse-Hunter is non-negotiable.” She had thought they were past that discussion.

“No one’s going to think she’s not mine,” Hunter muttered mutinously. “There’s videographic evidence that you like me.”

“The whole world has not seen the show,” Bobbi pointed out. “Either way, I want her to be Morse-Hunter. She’s going to be the best parts of both of us, and her name should be a reflection of that.”

“You didn’t need to go getting all philosophical on me, Bob.” Hunter sighed, tugging her back in close to him. “Besides, I only said if you were attached to Pearl Jamie, we could meddle with the last name to make it fit.”

“I’m not going to make any adult who knows her full name laugh at her, Hunter. No Pearl Jamie.”

He sighed, dripping with faux melodrama. “You think all my ideas are stupid.”

“Not all. Just most.” She grinned at him. “I seem to recall you having a crazy idea that we could have a daughter, and…” Bobbi gestured down to her belly. And here they were, their daughter coming in - nope, she wasn’t going to think about the countdown. Not yet.

“You know what I’m going to suggest now?”

“That we sleep on it?” That seemed to be Hunter’s go-to solution for naming related problems.

“Yup.”

“You see, not all your ideas are bad.”

\---

“Okay, baby. Kick once for yes, kick twice for no, got it?”

“Hunter,” Bobbi groaned, running her hand through her husband’s hair. He was kneeling in front of her, forehead pressed to her stomach as he talked to their daughter. “Please don’t ask her to kick me.”

“Sorry, Bob, but how else am I going to know if she likes the name?”

“You could ask her to very nicely move off Mummy’s bladder if she likes it.” Bobbi needed to pee. Again. All because her kid seemed to think her bladder was the most comfortable spot in the world.

“Mm, I’m not going to chance that one.” Hunter kissed her belly softly. “Sweetheart, you’re making Mummy very uncomfortable. Can you be a good little bird and move for her?” His voice was soft and sweet when he made the request, and for just a moment, Bobbi let herself be overwhelmed by the tenderness of it all. 

Then the baby moved, and she forgot about tenderness because she no longer felt she was one wrong breath away from wetting herself. “How do you do that?”

“I’m a baby whisperer.” Hunter pressed his lips against her stomach. “Isn’t that right, little bird?”

The baby kicked right where Hunter’s hand was settled. The traitor. 

“Okay, baby. One kick for yes, two for no.” Hunter paused for effect. “Pearl Evangeline Morse-Hunter, do you like your name?”

One kick. 

Two kicks.

Bobbi groaned.

“Hold on, hold on,” Hunter said before she could feel too defeated. “Baby girl, do you like Perry better?”

One kick.

Bobbi really couldn’t believe they were doing this experiment in the first place, let alone that the baby was doing exactly what Hunter wanted from her. This was ridiculous… but she was a little too in love with both of them to care.

“Perry Morse-Hunter it is,” she said. Hunter’s face lit up, and he pulled her onto her feet to kiss her soundly.

“We found her name!” His eyes were shining in the half-light of their bedroom, hovering between hazel and gold but so full of love it hardly mattered what color they were.

“We did.” Bobbi grinned at her husband. She leaned forward, pecking his nose. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“We make quite a pair.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to the most fabulous robot in the world! Thanks for letting me write about baking without you. ;)


End file.
